Ocean Cleanup Project Completes Great Pacific Garbage Patch Research Expedition 71
hypnosec writes: The reconnaissance mission of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, dubbed the Mega Expedition by Ocean Clean, has been concluded. The large-scale cleanup of the area is set to begin in 2020. The primary goal of the Mega Expedition was to accurately determine how much plastic is floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This was the first time large pieces of plastic, such as ghost nets and Japanese tsunami debris, have been quantified. “I’ve studied plastic in all the world’s oceans, but never seen any area as polluted as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” said Dr. Julia Reisser, Lead Oceanographer at The Ocean Cleanup. “With every trawl we completed, thousands of miles from land, we just found lots and lots of plastic.”
Re:Garbage what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ocean debris is a huge problem, it kills lots of animals suffering a painful and unnecessary death.
Even more so, this project can pay for itself, the plastic can be sold for recycling.
If you're worried about people wasting their time, go to a weapons manufacturer or a church, don't bs people who are actually trying to make the world a better place.
Re:Garbage what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Trash is an habitat for a lot of marine species? Thank god we're around, otherwise hermit crabs would be facing extinction.
And which bacteria are eating extremely high molecular weight polymers? The ones you dream about, certainly.
Stop vomiting stupid arguments. Trash, kills more animals (stuffing their stomachs, preventing them from breathing, etc.) than the few it helps. Sure, sunken boats may be awesome for marine wildlife, but it's not like there wasn't any wildlife around before we overfished it. And bacteria don't eat plastic. They may, at best, eat the microscopic pieces into which plastic broken down after years on the sun and being ground around against sand, rocks, or other debris. And even that is very up to debate. Just because they eat oil, it doesn't mean they'll eat a thousand times longer chain which has a totally different chemical structure. And yes, I'm a chemist.
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Yeah, great habitat there [google.is]....
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Re:Garbage what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ironically, there's the possibility that removing the trash could pay for itself and then some [dailykos.com]. Plastics floating in the ocean tend to slowly intercalate metals - the types and quantities depending on the plastic and the rate depending on the surface area to volume ratio (very high for most pacific garbage patch trash). Plastic trash that's been floating around for a long time tends to become quite contaminated by these metals (as well as some types of persistent biological toxins), making it much more toxic to sea life than new plastic. But these same metal "contamination" problems could make the waste a potential resource back on land. Intercalated metals can be stripped out by a soak in a strong acid bath. And the ratios of metals found in the oceans are very different than those found on land, with some, such as uranium and lithium, being orders of magnitude more common than they are on land.
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Intercalated metals can be stripped out by a soak in a strong acid bath.
OK, say that you gathered a lot of plastic and got it on land. Would this actually be cost effective?
How much metal can one expect to get from a ton of plastic and what is the cost of the process?
Without really knowing the answers and just speculating about the work needed to extract the metals it sounds to me that it's not something you will make a profit from.
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Without really knowing the answers
Without knowing the answers one conducts research to find out the details to know the answers. There already have been some studies about how plastic trash accumulates metals, although not of the ocean's more valuable metals. In the above-linked articles, some very rough calculations are run for different potential recovery rates of different metals and what their market value would be. There's lots of caveats, though.
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I have never heard a 'leftist' say anything like that. I'm pretty left-wing, and we're fully up for dealing with things big and small. Mind you I am British, and left-wingers over here are actually fucking left wing; there's almost nobody in the USA who isn't to the right of our centre.
But if that is an 'example', is there a citation?
Immigration (Score:4, Insightful)
In the past the right has proposed incremental changes to the immigration system
You mean incremental changes like self deportation [wikipedia.org], building a huge wall [wikipedia.org], etc? Yeah, let's not pretend the US political right has been anything remotely resembling rational about this issue - not to mention routinely racist (see Trump). Their general stance has largely been one of xenophobic hysteria with a complete disregard for why the problem exists in the first place or the economic consequences of their stance on the issue. Let's also not ignore the fact that most illegal immigrants coming into the US are Hispanic/Latino and that the Hispanic/Latino citizens eligible to vote tend to vote democrat and they (mostly) oppose the policies espoused by the US political right. The republicans will need the Hispanic vote but they keep shooting themselves in the foot on the issue.
Furthermore we DO need comprehensive immigration reform. The problem is that the left and right disagree on what the reforms should be and there hasn't been much willingness to compromise on the issue from either side.
People are coming to the US because there is economic opportunity. If there is economic opportunity where they are coming from then there is little reason for them to come. Want to solve the illegal immigration problem? Help Mexico and Central America build up their economy and it will (mostly) magically disappear. But illegal immigration is NOT what you should worry about. What you should worry about is if they stop trying to come to the US. That means economic opportunity has gone elsewhere.
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The issue with the Mexican and most Central American economies is graft and corruption at the Governmental level. Short of overthrowing those Governments - there's not a lot we can do other than what we've done (open markets - NAFTA).
Maybe we should try better border enforcement and encourage the local populace to institute change at home, rather than run away...
Walls will not solve the problem (Score:2)
The issue with the Mexican and most Central American economies is graft and corruption at the Governmental level.
As if those things don't exist in the US....
Short of overthrowing those Governments - there's not a lot we can do other than what we've done (open markets - NAFTA).
Not even remotely true that we have done everything we can. Our relationships with countries to our south is anything but friendly or productive. A lot of those countries don't like us at all because our policies do nothing to help them.
Maybe we should try better border enforcement and encourage the local populace to institute change at home, rather than run away...
You can build the walls as high as you want and it WON'T MATTER. If there is money to be made they will keep coming. And frankly spending vast resources policing the border is hugely wasteful and will never solve the problem.
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The issue with the Mexican and most Central American economies is graft and corruption at the Governmental level.
As if those things don't exist in the US....
Not even CLOSE to the same level as in Mexico, or Guatemala. Or other Central American countries. The level of corruption we have is nowhere near the same. If that's central to your point - then there's nothing else to discuss.
As for encouraging the immigrants home countries to institute change is exactly what I suggested. You have to help them build their economies which in turn will spur changes. Right now the US trade policies are anything but helpful or friendly.
OK, so how do you propose to do that? We have completely free trade, should we pay them to export their products to us? You have a nice little sound-bite, but what do suggest as action to make it "work"?
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It's because we've been told over and over by leftists
No you haven't.
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"when there are people going hungry in Iraq!"
Iraqis and Syrians are going to Hungary,
and The Czech Republic, and other EU countries
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Organized religion (Score:2)
I know your ravenous hatred blinds you, but churches have had the most success in making the world a better place.
I would say exactly the opposite. Organized religion is the foundation of countless wars, conflict and suffering. Organized religion is nothing more than a cynical means of controlling people and exercising power via irrational and unproveable beliefs. The fact that they do some charitable works does not begin to excuse the harm humanity has suffered because of the tribalism that results from organized religion. I don't care at all if people want to believe in some bizarre ideas of their own but they sho
Re:Garbage what? (Score:5, Informative)
Go back to doing nothing about any problem. (Score:1)
Go back to doing nothing about any problem. Like you were before hearing about people doing something about this one.
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Re:Garbage what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The oceans produce 70% of the oxygen on this planet. A huge portion of those "worrying about their next meal" depend on ocean ecosystems for that meal. And most of that plastic is produced by the first world, not the third.
And you know, they're also capable of speaking for themselves. You, a first-worlder, have food security. So what's your excuse for not using your privilege and means to do something about this problem?
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We already had that talk. And also probably some other civilization before us. Last time it was about poverty and space exploration.
You don't tackle the main problem: it's a useful tactic in certain fields, and in defined situations. For real life, things are much more interrelated and you have to tackle many problems at once.
For the possible benefits, I strongly recommend viewing the ancient but nonetheless very enlightening "Connections" series by James Burke.
In short words, solving some secondary problem
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A large part of the world still worries about the next meal , roof overhead and the other basic necessities of life . Garbage is the last thing on their mind . Some of them live in or near garbage .
I see a great opportunity here, just need to figure out how to get them into the Pacific...
How I read the title (Score:2)
- "Was about time. Good news!"
"...Completes..."
- "Already done?!. Great news!
"...Great Pacific Garbage..."
- "OMAIGOD!
"...Patch Research Expedition..."
*deadpan*
Other garbage patches and their impact (Score:3)
See The Five Gyres [tinypic.com]
ten years (Score:2)
Re:ten years (Score:4, Informative)
Oh yes, doing something is almost always better than doing nothing.
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"Completes GPGP Research Expedition" (Score:2)
"Completes Great Pacific Garbage Patch Research Expedition"
I'm torn. (Score:2)
As it's been said, it is like bailing out a bathtu (Score:3, Insightful)
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And while we're at it, why don't we also stop burning fossil fuels, quit using man made chemicals in agriculture, and stop worldwide violence. I think all those ideas are much more obtainable than stop using plastics.
Re:As it's been said, it is like bailing out a bat (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, comments like yours are the kind of "media hype" they've been getting... It seems to consist of more unsupported criticism than anything else. And more to the point, all the criticisms have been soundly addressed, in a nice convenient list, LAST YEAR:
http://www.theoceancleanup.com... [theoceancleanup.com]
You'll find a lot of the crap you're spouting is already in there, and already debunked.
Priorities (Score:1)
Let's take these two statements.
You can't build a 3000 km wall across the US southern border.
You can't build a system to clean up the garbage patch with a circumference of 3000 km.
It's interesting that people will agree with only one.
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The small, poor, communist East Germany managed to build an almost unpenetrable border more than 1.500 km long and maintain it for 28 years.
In the end it did not come down due to tchnical failure but politics.
Those who say "It is not possible" usually mean: "I do not profit from it. Let's do something that profits me."
Re: Priorities (Score:2)
The vast majority of 'Border Patrol Agents' are deployed not on the border, but sixty miles away, and they are not focused on discouraging border crossers as much as they are on housing, feeding, and caring for the border crossers before releasing them into the U.S. for their planned court date in 12-18 months.
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A wall is a passive defense; it requires little manpower to keep people from ever entering the US.
Drones and cameras require active and violent backup. Either the trespassers are shot dead, or they're rounded up at high manpower expense and then (because they're already in the US) they're into the legal system with gigantic manpower expense. A fair amount of border fence can be built with the money that would be spent on 100 hours of legal fees, and the money would be going to a more honorable class of peop
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A wall has a permanence to it that spans across Administrations.
Ever notice, say, a car repair shop where they have an 8 foot wall topped by razor wire? They build those because it reduces theft. Walls work, otherwise they wouldn't be built so often by property owners (both private and public).
Because no one along a 3145 km border would ever dig under the fence/wall, or cut a hole through it?
Belief in the effectiveness of a border barrier in stopping border crossers depends on never having looked at the problem in any depth. Pointing to the effectiveness of the East German border barrier as 'proof' of effectiveness simply highlights the ignorance of the advocates.
Here are some issues with this scheme.
The East German border was only 40% of this length, but required 47,000 border guards (there are
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The problem is that both the Republicans and Democrats want the illegal immigration to continue so they offer lip service to the securing the border but focus on using "keeping families together" as an excuse to keep everyone illegal here.
Can you imagine how different our job market would be for our unskilled labor force without the millions of illegals here working for scraps?
The thing is, the Democrats want the illegal immigration because minorities typically vote Democrat. Republican leadership wants it
Too technical (Score:2)
"we just found lots and lots of plastic"
These guys sound really sciencey. Couldn't they give their measurements in layman terms?
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11.06 lots and lots = 1 metric fuck ton
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